


Birthday Bond

by Batastic_Grayson



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily Feels, Birthday, Birthday Cake, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 13:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15908988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batastic_Grayson/pseuds/Batastic_Grayson
Summary: Dick Grayson is turning twenty years old and he's all alone. Feeling particularly isolated, Dick is surprised when none other than Bruce Wayne turns up on his doorstep to mend fences.





	Birthday Bond

**Author's Note:**

> This is obviously not canon, but I reference Dick self-harming and having depression, so be watchful if you are triggered by self-harm/depression references.   
> I do not own DC or its characters. I do own the story.   
> Thanks for reading!

No matter how many pass, I’m still not used to birthdays.

At one point, I’d waited for them to come with baited breath, knowing that they’d bring a day that was catered to my desires. A day full of gifts and hugs and directionless adventures. I’d been fond of the outdoors as a child, a trait that has persisted into adulthood, so we’d spent most of my birthdays swimming in lakes and exploring country sides. My parents had been unafraid of dirt, thankfully.

Looking out across the range of city, blue grey skyscrapers and snaking streets, cars shuttling like insects and people moving like raindrops across blacktop, I trace a fingertip over the glass separating us. I wish sometimes that I could see into their thoughts, perhaps move away from my own mind for a while, if only to quiet the noise. For being such a lonely cage, my own thoughts are so incredibly loud. Like a symphony of instruments, just a hair out of key. Just a beat behind tempo. Just a touch…wrong.

Birthdays.

They always make the memories stronger. This one isn’t too different. My parents aren’t so much dead as they are missing today. Their ghosts are lingering at the edges of my brain, their fingertips still dancing over my arms if I think hard enough. A song they used to sing is triggered by the radio, the way my mother’s nose wrinkled flashes in my mind when someone laughs. I hear them, all around me on days like this.

For once, I just want them to be quiet.

But I’m twenty years old today. No longer a boy. It’s a change in name really, but the departure feels especially cold when I think that my parents will never know me as I am now. And I…I will never see them as they should be. Greying and older. Playing matchmaker and awaiting grandbabies. Calling incessantly, sending cards on holidays, and making cakes for birthdays.

  
My hands brush over my arms absently, feeling the ridges beneath my sleeves mindlessly. I’ve been a cutter for years, finding solace in a blade when I couldn’t find it elsewhere. Birthdays usually bring a rash of relapses to pass, where I find myself locked in a bathroom with a razor and a first aid kit. I never understand why I do it, not fully. It just makes everything feel more real. More urgent. And my thoughts become singularly focused.

It’s a luxury that comes with a price, I think as my fingertips find the newest lines. It’s been well over a year since I’ve cut, but I did last night. I’d needed to, and even though I have people who I could call…I didn’t. I chose.

I feel guilty now, because I know I should tell people. I should say something. But I won’t. I never do.

A quiet rapping on my door, so quiet I almost miss it, interrupts the somber trail of my thoughts, and I shuffle to the door with a sigh. It’s probably my landlord, come to ask about the leaking tap I complained about a month ago, but I don’t particularly want to see anyone tonight.

When I prop open the door on my forearm and lean out to greet my visitor, I’m more than a little bit surprised to see Bruce standing on my stoop. He’s wearing a long rain jacket, soaked to the bone, with a sagging box cradled under his arm. His complexion is pale as ever, eyes like brine water, and expression cutting a stoic image, but he’s…here.

It’s been three months since we’ve even spoken, longer since we’ve seen each other. None of our interactions since I quit over a year ago have been mild or polite to say the least, so seeing him here is…conflicting. I can’t decide whether to be relieved or apprehensive.

I manage a half-breathed, “Bruce.”

He sniffs, swiping a hand over his face to dispel the clinging rainwater. He frowns, tips a chin over my shoulder. “Mind if I come in for a minute?”

I think about telling him to piss off, that I’m busy doing something else, but the lights are out behind me. I’m wearing a hoodie and sweats. I haven’t shaved in days. I’ve clearly been moping and we both know it.

“Uh, sure. Come in.” I step out of his way, letting him pass in a flutter of loose water drops.

I watch his shoulders, feeling confounded and somewhat afraid of why he’s here, as he shucks his rain jacket and shoes. To my surprise, I see that he’s opted for a pair of jeans and a sweater rather than his standard suit and tie look. His hair is uncombed, a slight bit of grey showing at his temples. It makes him look softer, somehow more approachable, and I feel instantly on edge when he turns to me with that box and just stares at me. He almost looks…afraid?

I work for something to say, trying to swallow past a cotton mouth, “I…do you need something Bruce? Is that why you’re here?”

Grey eyes like tumbled jasper hold mine, somehow vulnerable and strange, and I feel a terrible twist of sadness pit in my stomach. I’m not sure what I expect him to do other than stare at me, but it certainly isn’t what he does. Bruce, like he never has before, takes an awkward step forward with that rumpled box under his arm still, and enfolds me in a hug.

“Happy birthday, Dick.”

I can’t respond for several seconds, I’m so shocked, but I am acutely aware that he’s holding me tightly. Hugging me, for God’s sake. He smells like leather and coffee and mint gum and all the things I associate with my childhood at Wayne Manor. Memories twisted by our animosity these past months, and now righted again with just one hug.

When he pulls away, my eyes feel misty, and I have a hard time swallowing the lump in my throat. I should hate him after all we’ve been through, should kick him out for coming here on my birthday and toying with me like he is, but it feels too good to be acknowledged.

So, I just stare at him and search for something appropriate to say, “I…did you…” I shake my head, eyes still burning, “I thought you forgot.”

Bruce shakes his head, mouth tipping sadly, “Not this time.”

“You did last year.”

“I know.”

Strange how just that admission crumbles me a little more. I search his expression, trying to find reason behind the penitence I see in his eyes, but God he’s unreadable. What’s changed? Why?

“I, uh…do you want coffee or something?”

Bruce shakes his head, “No, that’s alright. I just wanted to drop this off.”

My stomach pitches in disappointment against my will, and I look down to the box. It’s soaked in rain, squished by too-rough of hands, but it’s wrapped in balloon paper and dotted with a bow. Bruce extends it to me, and I take the soggy package with a knot in my chest. Tipping up the lid, I see that it’s a small, half-collapsed cake, the kind Alfred makes every year around this time. Or at least, used to, before Bruce and I fell out.

Just the smell of buttercream frosting and wax candles makes me nostalgic, emotional to the point of weakness, and I close the box hastily. “You’ll have to thank Alfred for me.”

Bruce nods, and for once, his eyes are cast to the ground. I see his throat work around a swallow, “He thought you might like a piece of home.” I remain silent, unsure what to say or even how to speak at this point, but Bruce doesn’t seem bothered by the silence. He rubs his jaw, frowning at the hardwood floor, “He misses you.”

I clear my throat, nodding, “Well, I…I miss him too.”

When I look up from the string on my sweater, I’m surprised to see Bruce staring at me again. His eyes are that same strange blue, bordering on sedate as they study me. I can’t figure out the expression, but it’s certainly not one I’ve ever seen before.

He shifts, sighs, shifts again. His eyes never leave me, frowning from beneath twin inky brows. “Dick, I…”

I shake my head, swallowing hard, “Look, Bruce, you don’t have to do this. I know you just came here to drop off the cake, and that was nice, but…I don’t need you to—”

“Dick, let me finish.”

I look up, not realizing I’d dropped my eyes to the bleeding colors of the wrapping paper again. Bruce has stepped closer, expression deepened in intensity. I feel very much like a child when he frowns like that, and feeling as such makes me feel even weaker. I could fall over with a stiff wind at this point.

Bruce doesn’t waste much time before he takes another inhale, deeper this time, and tries again, “Dick, I came here to…apologize. I’ve not been who you needed, not been…well, not protected you like I should have. Not treated you with the respect you deserved or valued you when you needed to be valued.”

“Bruce…please don’t.” God, I’m going to dissolve at this rate, and I really don’t need him here seeing it.

Familiar black brows lower deeper, conviction burning like an ember in those stormy eyes. If there’s one good thing about Bruce, it’s that I know when he’s lying. And right now…he’s not lying.

“I pushed you away, Dick. Pushed you away because I was…afraid.” His expression folds, like a paper beneath a weight too heavy, and it damn near breaks me.

“I was lost in my own fears when you came to me, Dick, and I…I failed you.” He shakes his head when I try to say something, “No, it’s true. I did. I see that now. I took you from one lonely life to another, and for that, I am so sorry, Dick. So incredibly sorry.”

I search for words, but all that comes out is a mumbled, “Oh.”

He grabs both my shoulders, like I remember him doing so very long ago when I’d used to cry over my parents, and his eyes gaze into mine. “Can you ever forgive me?”

That old edge of anger rises for a moment, reminding me of all those missed apologies, those broken trusts. All that bitterness from our ending...but like cleaning a wound, the feeling of overwhelming gratitude and loss crests over that anger and washes it away. It drifts downstream and disappears over a distant horizon, eclipsed completely by the feeling of being a very small child, suddenly noticed. Suddenly found.

I don’t run from the feeling. I fall into it, let myself be consumed by it. And I find myself crying.

Bruce pulls me into another hug, and to say that I fall apart would be an understatement. All the things I’d been holding inside come pouring from me without filter. I blubber into his shirt about feeling alone and angry and afraid. I tell him how I miss parents and that the cuts on my arms are fresh and about the calls I’ve been ignoring. I tell him that I hate him and love him and miss him all at once, and why did he have to do this on my birthday? I even tell him that I’m sorry, the very thing I vowed never to say. I tell him everything that ails me, and when I’m finished, when I’ve got nothing left to give, I still cling to his shirt like a little boy.

Bruce lets me, his arms like a protective cage around my fragile form, but he doesn’t speak for several minutes. I listen to his heartbeat, inhale the scent of coffee grounds in his shirt, remembering when all I had wanted was this. To feel like a son who had a father again. And now I finally have my wish.

A minute or two into this, Bruce steps back slightly and takes one of my forearms in his hands. I don’t fight him when he lifts my sleeve and inspects the cuts, brow wrinkled. I should feel ashamed, guilty, but I’m just glad someone knows. Someone sees.

“Did you disinfect the blade?”

“Yes.”

Bruce looks up, pain bracketing his mouth, but he dips his chin, “Good. You’re being safe.”

He drops my arm, expression drenched in some unspoken acknowledgement, and he nods, “I want to do better, Dick. _Be_ better. For you…for everyone.”

I swipe at my tear-stained cheeks, feeling a weary chuckle break over my lips, “You’re already doing better, Bruce.”

“You know what I mean. I want to be more present. More…” he struggles for a word, and again, I am shocked by how vulnerable he looks. “Just more.”

I reach to give his shoulder a squeeze, surprised when he lets me. “You’re better at this than you give yourself credit for, Bruce.”

He doesn’t glower at a compliment for once, but instead gives a light chuckle. His eyes are tired like mine, weary from sharing and crying, but he manages a soft smile. “You always were a terrible liar, Dick.”

We stand like this for another moment, just looking at each other, trying to figure out where this leaves us. Somewhere closer than before, but still not fully mended. Time will heal the hurts, but for now, we just stare at one another with mirroring eyes. Like father, like son.

I eventually shift, remembering the soggy cake I’m still holding, “So…do you want to help me eat this or not?”

Bruce chuckles, shuffling a hand through his damp hair with a half-smile, “I was hoping you’d ask.”

We find ourselves on my couch twenty minutes later, watching a movie with two plates of ugly cake and two beers. It’s a bit like how I imagined a birthday should be spent, with loved ones, eating until you’re sick with a movie that you can laugh to. Our smiles are easy, and for the first time in months, I feel like I can take a deep breath.

Minutes after we’ve settled in for the second movie, now nursing full bellies and more beer, I feel Bruce’s hand find mine in the dark. He gives it a brief squeeze, his profile lit blue with the tv screen when he looks at me with grey-blue eyes.

“Happy birthday, son.”


End file.
